FRANKLIN — When an employee at the Boys and Girls Club of Franklin-Simpson County was caught embezzling thousands of dollars from the organization in 2010, the Franklin Police Department called on Lt. Art McFadden to investigate the case.

McFadden, who is a police officer by choice but a computer whiz by education, analyzed bookkeeping software to trace the thief, who pleaded guilty to 83 counts of second-degree forgery and one count of theft by unlawful taking over $500. The thief has been ordered to pay back what she stole.

McFadden is the guy who officers both in Franklin and outside of the city ask for assistance with computer crimes. He is a special U.S. deputy marshal and serves on the Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force. McFadden recently completed the Network Intrusion Response Program advanced computer training course. The U.S. Secret Service hosted the course at the National Computer Forensics Institute in Hoover, Ala.

He is one of only three officers in the state to receive this training. While he already understood the nuts and bolts of computer hacking, at the forensics institute he learned how to apply his knowledge to build a case against people accused of these crimes so that they can be brought to justice.

With the availability of the Internet, computer crimes can and do occur everywhere, from large cities such as New York to small towns like Franklin.

“The Internet has made crime in these arenas very localized,” McFadden said. “This affects every community.”

McFadden deals with everything from eBay crimes to one person threatening another person through Facebook or other electronic means to major fraud investigations. At least once a week, he receives a complaint from someone in Franklin reporting some sort of electronic scam.

Often, people who commit financial crimes do so for personal gain, but these types of crimes are increasingly being used for other more global threats.

“One of the things that financial crimes are being used for is to fund terrorism,” McFadden said.

Without the Internet and computers, terrorism funding networks would not exist, Franklin Police Chief Todd Holder said.

“This is a win-win for us and the feds,” McFadden said. “They pick up an extra agent, and we pick up someone that specializes in a field.”

McFadden’s training did not cost any local funding and is useful to other nearby agencies, Holder said.

“It’s all about training to help meet the needs of our citizens as well as the surrounding law enforcement agencies that don’t have the luxury of having someone who specializes in computer and technology crimes,” Holder said.

Tips to avoid being the victim of an electronic scam:

• Banks and creditors require passwords for electronic account access. Don’t use words as your password. Make sure your password is at least eight characters, includes at least one number, a symbol, lower case letters and upper case letters.

• Don’t give out your financial information over the telephone. Your bank will not call and ask for your Social Security number, pin number, credit-card numbers or routing information.

• If someone calls you purportedly on behalf of a relative who they say is jailed in a foreign country and claims that you need to send money for that relative’s bail, check out their story and call your local police.

• Check your credit reports annually to make sure that no one has used your personal information to obtain credit.

• If you a receive a call or email from someone asking you to cash a lottery check or any other type of check at your bank with an offer to let you keep a portion for yourself, don’t do it. Report it to your local police. These are often overseas scammers who will bilk you out of money that you will not likely ever see again.